Review: Blood Dark Thirst

I am and have always been a huge fan of the World of Darkness. Especially the World of Darkness Vampire and Werewolf lines. Masquerade always had the best flavor but mechanically it did some wonky things and Requiem 2nd Edition is mechanically far superior but lacks the flavor. Because Gothic vampire horror has been my jam I am always on the look out few new games in that ballpark and all of them I have always felt fell short until I discovered Blood Dark Thirst.

I was actually part of the early play test and I received a review pdf  from Vengar As'Nas Satanis. The final game was released some time ago uses an iteration of Vengar's VSd6 system instead of the early play test that used a single d10 system.

One of my favorite things about this game is that there is a fresh take on the vamperic origins and what a vampire is. It is basically summed up by this;

I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING, THAT IS METAL AS HELL! ACTUALLY - YOU DON'T GET MORE METAL THAN THAT...

Presentation: To be completely honest, I am blown away by this game and the presentation of it. The layout (which is done by Glynn Seall) and art is gorgeous and in book that is only twenty five pages long there is at least 7 pages of full art! The blood splatters and everything else just makes this product stand out.

Character Creation: This is simple and straight forward. Your character gets three things that its good at which are rated at 3d6, two things that you are bad at which is rated at 1d6, and everything else outside of these traits your character decides to do is considered average at 2d6. You also choose three flaws, a quirk, gender/name, year you were turned into a vampire (within the last 100 years), characters apparent age, consider who turned you into a vampire, and what you look like. There are tables if you want to randomize some of this stuff. There are other things the character gets access to such as Willpower, a Blood Pool, and health.

Resolution System: It uses the VSd6 system which means you roll 2d6 for most tasks, with advantages and disadvantages reducing or increasing the numbers rolled. 0d6 means rolling 2d6 twice and taking the lesser result. The system then is about interpreting what happens. 1 is a critical failure, 6 a critical success - "Yes, and"... or "No, and..." are the key words here. 2 is a failure, 5 a success, and 3 and 4 are partial failure and success, respectively. These are the base rules; they're very simple and easy to grasp and can be explained in less than a minute

The Crunch: Each character starts out with 6 Humanity and doing evil things decreases your humanity and doing good things increase your humanity. The less humanity you have the more feral and monstrous you appear which  makes it harder to interact with the general public. Vampires can have up to 6 Willpower and spend a maximum of 3 per scene but no more then one per turn (new characters begin play with 0 willpower and gain willpower points by role playing their flaws). Willpower is spent to gain bonus dice, making a new vampire, resist supernatural effects, and resist frenzy.

As far as the blood pool goes, vampires have a maximum blood pool of 6 and using a supernatural ability, waking up at night, and healing all cost one. Humans have 6 blood points and vampires can eat three of them without the human needing medical attention. At 3 blood points the player rolls an addition red d6, at 2 blood points the player rolls 2 addition red d6s, and at 1 blood point the player rolls three additional red d6s when an action is attempted. If any of these red dice come up a 1, the vampire goes into a frenzy and becomes a tool of the GM.

Vampires start with 25 health and can only be killed with fire and decapitation so vampire tough as hell (literally) and can keep coming back from the dead again and again.

As for the vamperic powers, all vampires can influence minds, conduct acts of super strength and super speed. The game has a good list of other vamperic powers that you get to choose from and are unique enough that each PC can be very unique. They can also form blood bonds and all of that.

The pdf comes with an basic introductory adventure that includes a handout. It also includes a badass character sheet as well;

Final Thoughts: The system, the flavor, even the crunchy bits, and especially the presentation make this game simply amazing. It has become my go to vampire game (YES, you heard right) and I cannot talk about it or recommend it enough. The setting and the way the mechanics reinforce certain things really bring to light the monster and survival aspect of the genre but it is balanced with everything else so the monster/feeding/etc is not the sole purpose (the frenzy/blood dice mechanic can be scaled down to 1 red d6 at blood pool 2 and 2 red d6s at blood pool 1 to gently tip the scales without losing the original flavor.). It would also take minimal effort to house rule other things.

The only downside about Blood Dark Thirst is that it is only 25 pages. I wish there was so much more content and I hope there is more content on its way. I would also really want to see at least a mortal and a werewolf expansions as well.

You can find it at drivethrurpg and amazon.